


Untitled

by baranduin



Series: No Night Is Too Long [6]
Category: No Night is Too Long (2002)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-14
Updated: 2010-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-06 06:28:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baranduin/pseuds/baranduin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Movie-verse in that it is using the comment Tim makes about his parents' relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untitled

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the fanfic100 community challenge #027--Parents.

"Do you have any idea what it's like to see someone, to go up to them and they've got this look of expectation written all over them? And then they see who it is and their face just falls when they see it's you and not someone else? Not the one that they want?"

Oh, he didn't say it quite like that, not after all the widow that he'd drunk that night. Then again, how should I know how eloquent my Mr Cornish was? I'd drunk my own share, more than my usual share actually. But I remember, oh I remember how he went on and on that night about his mother and his father and the bond that kept them together tightly, so tightly that there'd been almost no room for young Tim.

At some point, I wanted to see if I could get a word in edgewise, and I found my opportunity when he stopped to swill down another gulp.

"It's hard, I know," I said. "That sense of feeling left out of a special circle, of just wanting to break in. Needing to so badly."

There was so much I wanted to tell him. I wanted to confide in him about my own struggles, about what it had been like when it was only Isabel and me looking in from the outside, but I'm afraid my pride was too much for me. I wanted him to ask. I hoped that it might prompt a question from him about my own family, but I might as well not have spoken.

"But you see, Ivo, I can't decide which is worse." He stopped a minute and looked over at me, I suppose waiting for me to murmur something encouraging. When I didn't, he continued. "I mean whether it was worse before he died or now. Because she still thinks he's coming home, and not just for a split second when the door opens and her face just lights up because she knows it's him. But it's not him and it never will be again. I know it perfectly well and I never forget it, but the thing is, she doesn't know it any more, or if she does, it's just for a minute or so and then the memory goes away again. I think that's the worst part. Before father died, she'd get that let-down look on her face when she'd see it was me coming into the room, but it just lasted a minute and then she'd put on her loving mummy face for me. But now, it's like something's short-circuited in her brain. It's almost like she's gone into some sort of suspended animation, and that look of disappointment just stays there all the time except for when she asks me when he'll be home. She does do that, you know. I come into the house, and she's got that look of happy expectation, then she goes all disappointed and she just stays that way except for asking when he's going to be home, why he's so late, has he called to say when he'll be back. That sort of thing. I don't think you can have any idea of what that's like."

It was really quite amazing that he could have considered what my familial experiences might have been, given that he'd never asked the slightest question about them—not their names, what they did, where they lived, _if_ they lived. But now of course he was expecting something from me and I couldn't disappoint him, could I? So I just said, "No more loving mummy face for you?"

He really was a pathetic case; there were tears in his eyes when I said that and he moved towards me, lying down on the couch and putting his head in my lap.

"That's it, Ivo. Exactly. You do understand after all."

It was my turn to do some champagne swilling. When I put the glass down, he was still looking up at me, wet round eyes gone all soft and sweet and begging. What a pretty beggar he was.

"You do care about me, don't you?" Tim asked.

What could I say? "You know I do." I stroked his head and repeated those four words over and over like a lullaby, though of course what I longed to say to him was that I loved him and he'd never see that let-down expression on my face. I stuck to my resolution that night. Too bad I didn't stick to it forever.


End file.
